Changeling Child
by Theater Raven
Summary: Uppsala, Sweden, 1842. Luna is a Fossegrim, a violin-playing water spirit who will teach her otherworldly skills to mortal musicians, for a price. Yet with belief in the fairy folk lessening, their wisdom, too, is in danger of departing from the human world forever. One night, however, Luna finds hope in a boy, a boy who could pass for a fairy child, but he is not-he is human.


16

Author's Note: This is a short story I composed for one of my creative writing classes in college. It was written in 2012 and I just came across it again and so wanted to share it here. I am considering expanding it into a larger work, so any feedback would be appreciated.

**Changeling Child **

Luna sat at the entrance to her cave, her waterfall flowing peacefully before her as she tuned her violin, preparing for another night of performing. It was a lovely evening to fill with music. The stars, peeking through the settling sunset, were twinkling like the eyes of eagerly-grinning children who were anxious to hear her play, and the river was rippling happily over the rocks as though it was warming up its voice to sing along with her violin. Luna stepped through the curtain of water in front of her so she could see the night more clearly. As she looked around, she saw a section of bark on one of the trees begin to shiver.

The bark shivered more and more quickly until a little hole, a shadowy doorway, appeared in it. The hole gradually expanded, and at last, a hand emerged. The hand subtly shook with all the effort its owner was putting forth, its fingers spread as widely as they could be. Finally, the shadowy doorway was big enough for its opener to step through it. Luna's neighbor, Göran, a dwarf, now stood off to her right.

He turned around to face the tree he had come through, holding his outspread hand towards the door in the bark. Slowly, he narrowed the gaps in between his fingers and then gradually curled his hand into a tight fist. As he did this, the doorway in the bark grew smaller and smaller until at last it had closed completely and the tree looked no different than the rest of its companions in the forest.

"Good evening, Göran," Luna said as she finished tuning her violin. "What brings you to the riverbank?"

"I thought you could use an audience other than the trees," the dwarf replied, trying to smile as he spoke.

Göran's voice was always raspy, like the sound of his stone tools scraping against stubbornly-hard earth, but he had sounded even more strained than usual while answering her. What he had attempted to pass off as a smile looked more like a grimace, and Luna noticed that he was massaging the joints of his fingers he had used to open the door in the tree. Their relationship was not unlike the relationship between the two different elements they worked with, earth and water—sometimes when mixed together, they made mud good for strengthening walls, other times they made water soiled by dirt, leaving it unfit to drink. Still, as she watched him trying to subtly soothe his hands, Luna could not help but feel sorry for Göran.

"It takes longer for me to part the bark," Luna said with tentative gentleness, "But I don't mind. Simply ask and—"

"I don't need any help, Luna!" Göran snapped.

She pointed the bow of her violin at him.

"You're massaging your fingers again."

Göran abruptly dropped his hands to his sides, trying to act as though they had been there since he closed the door. He dug a little hole in the soft earth of the riverbank with the toe of his tough leather boot. Luna was unsure of what else to say. Göran was only five hundred years old, but he was aging much more quickly than his father, who lived to be eight hundred and had dexterously dug tunnels right until the end. Luna knew Göran was too proud to admit that arthritis was slowing him down or, even more frightening, that the passing of the centuries was beginning to hold significance for him and his kinsmen.

Wanting to fill the night with something other than these troubling thoughts, Luna positioned her violin under her jaw and began to play. It was a merry tune, one that she had played at revels many times, and just as the music had set elfin feet moving at those gatherings, now, it made the trees sway with dancing even though there was no wind to help them. That was the sign of a skillful Fossegrim, if he could make the trees dance. Luna prided herself with being able to do this not only because it was difficult to reach that level of musical mastery, but also because she was the only woman of her kind to even pick up a violin much less achieve such perfection with playing it. Usually the women in the life of a Fossegrim were so preoccupied with tending to the hearth and home beneath the river or foraging in the forest for berries to go with the fish that made up almost all their meals that there was little time left for them to do anything else; if one of the women was found to be musically gifted, she was taught to sit beside the Fossegrim and sing along to his playing, but it was unheard of for her to make music on the violin herself.

Luna's father, however, had been different. He had no younger brother or nephew to pass his songs along to, and when his wife finally gave him a child and the babe turned out to be a girl, she grew learning the work of both maiden and musician. The tune Luna was now playing was a bittersweet reminder of her father, for it was one of the first pieces he had ever taught her. Luna's father had died fairly recently—three centuries ago—and she was still greatly grieving the loss.

"They shouldn't have built that dam," she said quietly as the final notes faded. "Don't they remember? A Fossegrim can never leave or lose his waterfall."

"There are few mortals left who _do_ still remember," Göran replied sadly, looking at her from where he sat further down the bank. "Thankfully, the artists and poets still keep us in memory. But their fellow men . . ."

He looked across the river and over the tops of the trees. Off in the distance, towering over the foliage of the forest, three great spires that were simply the topmost part of the building they were connected to haughtily speared upwards towards the sky. And, capping each of the spires, was a cross.

"Uppsala Cathedral," Göran said with a nod towards the spires, trying to hold back a laugh as if he were in the presence of a child who had done something humorous that they meant to be taken seriously. "What fools the priests are, telling their flocks that we could never exist, or that we were driven out of these woods long ago by their Christ."

"If it wasn't true before, it _is_ happening now," Luna answered sadly. "Some are leaving for deeper parts of the forest, not so close to the humans."

"We could go as deep into the forest as we like, but they would still follow us. There are human towns and villages now in places we never thought they could survive in. All because of those blasted—"

"Perhaps the stories aren't true. Perhaps it _is_ possible for you to—"

"Why risk it? They're too cold for us, for even the most skilled builders to handle. They don't require magic, or even the skill of the hands using them, just brute force. How could any passion for work come from that? Besides, you've heard the stories, tales of instant frostbite over the entire hand for so much as laying a fingertip on one of those tools. With those things in the mortals' hands, they'll be the death of us, Luna."

"Well, _this_ has certainly been a pleasant conversation!" Luna said sarcastically.

"I'd rather not think of these things, either; the mortals are leaving us no choice. If you would prefer to drown out the sounds of reason with music, then go to it. Truly, I could use that right now. Play something."

Luna placed the bow across the strings and began to play a piece she had composed that sounded even gentler than the river rippling calmly over the rocks. It was a lullaby for the water she held so dear, for the home she hoped would still be there long after she herself was gone.

"Look!"

The strings screeched terribly off-key as Luna's hand fumbled with the bow, startled by Göran's sudden cry. She looked over at him and saw that he was pointing across the river, to some distance away on the opposite bank. At first, in the mixing colors of fading daylight and oncoming night, Luna could not tell what he was directing her to look at, but then, she saw it. Smoke was rising up rapidly from a clearing in the trees, but it was not the controlled column of smoke that signaled it was rising from a campfire. It was a wild billowing of clouds, a rapid spreading of smoke that meant the flames were destructively consuming things they shouldn't. Luna felt the familiar sensation of animosity seize her.

Her chest tightened and every other part of her body was overcome with a sudden sense of pressure, assigning the outlet for this energy to her hands and fingers. Being a creature of the water, she despised fire and any sign of it instantly compelled her to go put it out. She quickly ducked behind the waterfall and put her violin in a safe place in her cave, then reemerged and placed an unsteady foot on the bank.

"I'm going to put it out," she said, speaking more so to reassure herself than to tell Göran what she was doing.

"You'll never reach it in time."

"Yes, I will!" she cried as she struggled to pull her other foot up out of the water and set it firmly on the soil.

She took a few hurried steps forward and stumbled, falling to her hands and knees.

"Your legs aren't strong enough to travel that far on land! Leave it! Sometimes, fire must be allowed to burn, Luna."

"Not as long as I'm here!"

And without another word to Göran, she set off in the direction of the smoke.

#

At last, Luna reached the clearing in the woods, and when she did, she discovered that the journey there had been the easy part of the task she had set for herself. Before her, the fire blazed with an appetite that appeared it would never be satisfied. The flames were eagerly eating away at both the trees of the forest and the wooden wagons of the Romani camp that lay within the clearing. Her heart leapt out to the humans as she watched them scurrying about, trying to save what possessions they could and attempting to untie their terrified horses from burning hitching posts. Luna had always felt a connection to the Romani, who were called Gypsies by humans outside their culture. These mortals reminded Luna of her own kind because, just like her kinsmen, the Romani were often mistrusted or even feared by fellow human neighbors for their gifts of fortunetelling, speaking to those beyond the veil, and other such things.

Seeing a group of these people in danger made Luna even more determined to put out the fire than she had first been upon simply seeing the smoke in the distance. She looked about, wondering how to combat such an enormous blaze while also remaining hidden from the humans' sight. Beside her, there was a large tree that had not yet been enwrapped in the flames. Luna struggled to pull herself up into the tree, which was harder than simply walking on land; the bark was rough beneath her hands, and the water that flowed from her fingers as she gripped the branches made the tree slippery and even more difficult to climb, but finally, she reached the height she wanted. Spreading out her hands, Luna shot water from her fingertips over the flames, and she was so high up in the tree that the falling water had the appearance of a merciful rain showering down from the sky.

The touch of water is normally gracefully gentle, and so, in its hunger, fire arrogantly underestimates the power of his foe, but like anything else, water can be used with great strength to battle injustice. It thus did not take long for the blaze in the clearing to be extinguished, but it took a large amount of energy, and so, once the majority of the flames were gone, Luna sat exhaustedly in the tree for a moment before she climbed down to explore the wreckage. Most of the wooden wagons were now skeletons of their former selves, proudly trying to still stand upright despite being so severely burned. As she softly sprinkled water from her fingers to extinguish any remaining smoldering flames, Luna decided to sift through the ashes to see if any valuables had been left behind.

Whenever she and her ethereal neighbors gathered together for their revels, any trinket that had once belonged to humans fetched a high price amongst the trading circles, for it took either great cunning or diplomacy for one of the "untrustworthy" fairy folk to convince a mortal to give them anything of monetary or personal value. Even items that were stolen from a human were held at high value, because venturing to the village or home of any humans was dangerous and required much bravery. Looking through the still-warm ashes, Luna was disappointed to see that nothing much of value had been left behind, and, knowing she had a long journey back through the forest and that she must be back in the river before the golden rays of sunup stretched out over the world, she turned and started to head back the way she had came. Behind her, she heard the rustling of something moving, and when this noise was followed by the creaking crash of one of the burnt wagon frameworks giving in and falling to the ground, Luna assumed that was all the sound had been. She was about to leave when she heard a soft groan.

Turning around, carefully making her way across the clearing where the camp had once been, Luna saw a figure lying motionless amidst the ruins of the fallen wagon. As she got closer, she could see that the figure was a boy, knocked unconscious by the skeleton of the caravan that had fallen on top of him. The child looked to be about ten years old, and he was dressed in a small black suit and little black leather gloves. The most curious thing about the boy's appearance, though, was his face—Luna could not see it because it was covered by a mask made out of gray cloth. Luna looked about, listening to see if anyone was coming back for the boy, and when it seemed that she was the only one around, she gently shook him by the shoulder.

"Child, can you hear me?"

The boy did not respond. Taking off one of his gloves, revealing a thin, almost skeletal-like hand covered by tightly-stretched skin, she held the boy's wrist and felt a pulse fluttering. Gently letting go of his arm, she then reached for the mask that covered his face.

#

Göran had originally thought the distant knocking sound was just the echo of his own hands as he worked to pack in the soil to strengthen the section of tunnel wall that had caved in the other day. When he finally finished his work, though, and he heard the knocking still going on and beginning to sound more anxious, he knew it had not been an echo, and so he made his way down the earthen hall towards where the sound was coming from. Göran climbed up the wooden ladder that leaned against the wall and worked to move aside the heavy rock that covered the entrance to his home. In his younger days, he could move the stone aside with ease, but now he had to brace his feet firmly against the rung of the ladder they were standing on and push with all his might to move the boulder out of the way. Finally shoving the stone aside, Göran cautiously peeked his whiskered face out of the hole just enough so he could see what was going on outside.

At first, all he could see was the dark woods ahead, but when he heard someone call his name, he turned his head in the direction the voice had come from. Luna was sitting a few feet from the hole, holding a young boy in her arms.

"I need to use your tunnels," she said in a whisper. "I can't bring him in the way I usually go home; he'd drown."

If she for some reason ventured from her waterfall during the night, Luna returned to her home beneath the river by simply shapeshifting into water herself just for a moment so she could more easily navigate through the rough current and pounding force of the waterfall, changing back into the form of a woman once she was safely home. Her violin, enchanted with the magic given to the instrument of any Fossegrim, was strong enough to withstand the churning water plunging over the rocks and could pass through it as easily as though it were sliding beneath a curtain of soft velvet. Göran, who already had a gnarled face like the creatures called gargoyles the mortals carved into their churches, twisted his expression into a suspicious scowl as he looked at Luna. She nervously tucked her silver hair back behind her pointy ears as she waited for his reply.

"He's a mortal, isn't he?" Göran asked and when Luna nodded, he hissed even more fiercely, "What are you doing with a human child? Wasn't putting out the fire enough?"

"He was in the debris of one of the wagons. I think the Romani thought him dead when they fled the fire in their camp."

"Your heart will be the death of you, Luna. Did anyone see you?"

"No."

"You took only him?"

"Yes."

"Even that was too much. Go put him back."

"No!"

"Luna, we can no longer afford to do this. We have to let them come to us."

"Nonsense! There are still some who believe—"

"But not enough," Göran said, beginning to climb back down the ladder and walk a ways into the tunnel as he ranted, "A few short centuries ago, we did this sort of thing with ease, but now, in 1842, no. Uppsala isn't what it once was, and neither are its residents. If a human goes missing because of us now, needless accusations and suspicions rise up amongst his neighbors. And when he returns and tells of the good things we taught him, his friends shy away from him and call him mad. Go put the boy back where you found him. No good can come from trading anymore."

"Göran, he was alone," Luna said as she struggled to bring the still-unconscious boy through the hole and down the ladder.

"Someone will find him if they search where the fire was," Göran replied.

He blocked her path, standing his ground and trying to look as intimidating as possible even though the top of his head only came up to her waist and she could have slipped past him at any time. Despite his short stature, the stern look in his eyes was enough to make Luna pause. It was an unwritten and unspoken rule amongst the local fairy folk that, since Göran had been the one who had worked so hard to make the extensive network of tunnels that connected all their dens together, he was the "gatekeeper" in deciding who and what passed through them. For a moment, Luna had to think of how to persuade him and then, she took off the mask that covered the boy's face.

"Look at him."

Even Göran, who had seen many twisted forms in his day, was taken aback by what was revealed to him. The child's yellowish skin was stretched so thinly and tightly over his bones that Göran could see every fluttering of the boy's blue veins as they channeled blood through his body. He had only a few locks of raven-dark hair on an otherwise-bald head, and, even though his eyes were closed, it could clearly be seen how deeply sunken-in they were, but probably the most striking feature of all was so shocking because of its nonexistence—although he had nostrils, the boy had no nose. After taking a moment to stare at the child, Göran lifted his gaze to Luna.

"Did you veil him?" he asked, for often, when one of the fair folk took a human offspring for their own, during the journey to the child's new home, they created an illusion around the mortal so that it would look like one of them.

"No, I didn't," Luna answered. "This is how he is."

"And he was alone?"

"Yes."

There was a pause as Göran kept looking from the boy to Luna.

"Think of what I could do with him, what we all could," she insisted. "A human who could easily pass for a troll's child—think of it!"

"You've seen what they do to their fellow men who are born as he is. They lock them away to be gawked at as if they were living paintings, some odd mistake an artist made—"

"But with our music, our singing, he won't _have_ to be locked up! People would come from miles around to hear him! They'd worship him! The mortals go into a trance when they stumble across our revels and hear our music!"

"Those were in the old days, Luna," Göran answered as he started to turn away and walk down the tunnel. "Take him back."

"You could have him as you apprentice."

Luna spoke the words as though they were wriggling worms on a hook. When Göran's pace slowed, Luna knew she had him. The dwarf was proud of his intricate network of tunnels, but along with his pride, he was also greedy.

"Think of it," Luna continued, "A human with your skills, but with the mortals' tools."

Göran completely stopped in his tracks. At last, perhaps there was promise. The great power the humans held over them, the fact that their iron tools froze the fingers of any member of the fair folk who touched them, could at last be overcome. This child, who had been cast out from his own kind, was now precious to those who had found him. He could handle the humans' iron, and live among the fairy folk so that, upon his return, his own people would remember them.

"Very well, Luna," Göran said, looking back at her before he moved down the tunnel to open the door that led to the part of the tunnel which opened up to her home behind the waterfall, "Keep him."

As she moved past him, carrying the child in her arms, he tried to hide a hopeful smile.


End file.
